Re: The Myth of Arbitrariness


Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim wrote:
> benlizross wrote:
> > >
> > You appear to be confusing two quite different things: (1) the
> > arbitrariness of the link between sound and meaning in languages as we
> > know them, which is neither a "myth", nor a "claim" nor a "solution" to
> > anything, but an everyday observed fact, as your "dog" example shows;
> > and (2) some idea about how things _originally_ got their names. The
> > fact is that we have absolutely no idea (and no hope of knowing) who
> > first made up a word for "dog", or what that word was, or why they gave
> > it such a name. Of course people do still make up new words for new
> > things, using a number of principles, of which mimesis would be one. And
> > you could argue that such acts of invention are not "arbitrary". But
> > that's not what Saussure was talking about.
>
>
> Don't you think the two points you mentioned are two sides of the same
> *** of paper.

No.

>As you personally admitted names are not given at
> random but it is not an easy ask either to find out the principles and
> establish the relationship between sound and meaning.

It is not all that difficult if you are looking at examples of (2),
that is, a name being given to something which previously did not have
a name. But, I repeat, that is not what Saussure was talking about.

> Nothing comes out of the blue.

Well, from the point of view of the language learner, most things do.

>The answer might be provided by semiotics.

I very much doubt it. In any case, in order to look for an answer, you
would have to have a coherent question. What is the question?

The link
> between sound, meaning and objects is perhaps still hidden to us and
> needs to be established yet. There is still a long way to go.

Do you really think that, by some form of research, we might some day
arrive at an explanation for _why_ the word for dog is "dog", "chien",
"perro", "hund", "inu", "kurii", "sobaka", etc. in various languages?
(I mean, of course, something _other_ than the etymological/historical
particulars of each language.) I can't even imagine what such an
explanation might look like.

Everyone will admit that arbitrariness is not total, that there are
some non-arbitrary elements in language. John Lawler is probably right
in emphasizing that these are more extensive than many people think.
But arbitrariness is still the typical situation.

Even within the familiar domains of non-arbitrary, sound-symbolizing
words, arbitrariness exists. According to my little dictionary, the
crow is called /qa:q/ in Egyptian Arabic. We can see the similarity to
the crow's voice, and thus a sound-meaning connection. In English there
is no such connection -- even though the bird may say "caw caw", its
name is /kro:/, and that's an arbitrary fact about English. But even in
Arabic, while the imitative origins of the name may be obvious, it is
an arbitrary fact that must be learned that the bird _is_ named in this
particular way, and not another -- not */ka:k/ or */qa:qa:/ or anything
else. And that's an arbitrary fact about Arabic.

Ross Clark

.